Island historians appeal Strawberry Park “nonsignificance”

Commentary by Gerald Elfendahl…

Dear Friends of Cannery Cove Park,

Thanks to your support and encouragement, we waded in! WE FILED AN APPEAL of the City’s Declaration of Non-Significance (DNS) for THE City’s planned excavation of our waterfront and history! The call it Strawberry Plant Park. We like to call it “Cannery Cove.” A copy of our appeal letter is below except for attachments.

We thank all those who made time on short notice to write letters, help with collecting the history and what have you. Our Council’s Public Works committee has recommend the hiring of a project contractor already! This will go before the full Council for approval Wednesday night (May 13)!

Here is the APPEAL:

Friends of Cannery Cove Park
c/o Gerald Elfendahl, Doug Hatfield et al
7823 Westerly Lane NE
Bainbridge Island, WA 98110

May 8, 2009

Kathy Cook, SEPA Official
Roz Lassaff, City Clerk
City of Bainbridge Island
280 Madison Ave. N.
Bainbridge Island, WA 98110

SUBJECT: NOTICE OF DNS APPEAL- SCUP/SSDP/SPR11335

Dear Kathy Cook, SEPA Official; and Roz Lassaff, City Clerk:

Please consider this letter our formal appeal of the Determination of Non Significance for the Strawberry Plant Restoration, SCUP/SSDP/SPR11335 issued on April 16, 2009. A copy of the DNS is attached.

We enclose herewith our appeal fee in the amount of $530.00. We are filing this appeal for ourselves as citizens of Bainbridge Island and on behalf of “Friends of Cannery Cove Park” and the following individuals named below at the end of this appeal.

Summary of Grounds for Appeal

We have numerous grounds on which to appeal the above referenced determination, including, but not limited to, inaccuracies in the Environmental Checklist. We attach copies of our letters — (Swolgaard, April 29, 2009; Hatfield, April 29, 2009; Labotz, May 1, 2009; Elfendahl, April 30, 2009) — and incorporate them herein by reference.

Those letters provide substantial details about our concerns and basis for appeal. These basis, include but are not limited to the following: the property is currently the subject of a local historic register nomination process to the City of Bainbridge Island’s Historic Preservation Commission, and a nomination process to the U.S. Department of Interior’s list of National Historic Places through the Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation and the Washington State Historic Preservation Advisory Council. The property was placed in the Bainbridge Island Historic Resources Inventory in 1990.

Cannery Cove Park site occupies a unique and unequaled historic place in the history of Bainbridge Island. Following early occupation by original settlers on Bainbridge Island, it served for many decades as a strawberry processing plant of key strategic importance, and a place for significant maritime commerce.

Cannery Cove Park has a rich and varied history, evocative landscape and archaeological resources significant to the Island, region, State, USA, Canada and Japan. It has played a very significant role in area settlement; maritime, agricultural and industrial history; and in the rich cultural fabric of many peoples.

Cannery Cove was the site of Capt. Alvin Oliver’s pioneer landing, store, boat haul out and yard (ca. 1891 – 1911).

It became the Winslow Berry Growers’ strawberry shipment and canneries site (ca. 1909 – 1931) contributing significantly to the birth of two of the Pacific NW’s pioneer and premiere food processors, National Frozen Foods (AKA National Fruit Canning Co., Western Families, etc.) and R. D. Bodle Company located their first plants on the Seattle waterfront because of the “proximity to the Island’s berry harvest.”

Many of the regions first immigrants were drawn to Bainbridge Island by one of the few work opportunities – the international export mill at Port Blakely. With the mill’s closure, many of Japanese ancestry were shut out of other job markets and prevented from owning lands by Alien Land Laws. Nevertheless, they worked together with native peoples and immigrants of all nationalities to tirelessly create a strawberry industry that became world famous to Kings and Queens and thrived even during the Great Depression. Their laborious clearing of forest lands by hand for berry growing expedited the development of the Island. The strawberry cannery site evokes strong feelings even today. It provides the historical context for the National Park Service’s “Nidoto Nai Yoni – Never Let It Happen Again” Nikkei Memorial. It is in Eagledale and is a satellite to the Minidoka National Park near Twin Falls, Idaho.

Side by side with agricultural successes, mariners and fishermen utilized the sites wharf and yard to support and maintain the Island’s fleet of vessels. Following WW II, the site housed the Island’s first ready-mix concrete and building supply service and a pre-stress concrete manufacturing facility that provided heavy duty decks for Port of Seattle docks on Harbor Island and all over the Seattle waterfront. The Port of Kingston’s Marina was built inside the strawberry cannery in the 1960’s.

The site is associated with famous mariners: 20-year resident, Capt. Benjamin T. Tilton, Arctic whaler, member of the prestigious Explorers’ Club of NYC and an associate of Arctic Explorer V. Stefansson; Capt. Isaac C. Norton of Martha’s Vineyard who received a US Treasury gold medallion for saving the lives of fourteen crewmen aboard three ships in an 1898 perilous storm; and lifetime Islander Capt. Holger Christensen, who with his father Nels, seasonally hauled the Island’s strawberries – over two million pounds in 1940 – and became the nations top mariner with US Coast Guard licenses for All Tonnage and All Oceans for 50 years, no doubt inspired by his sea captain neighbors, Tilton and Norton, and opportunities made possible by a red berry.

The plan advanced by staff employees of the City of Bainbridge Island is flawed in many respects and completely misstates the true history of the site, its natural features, the fact that what is proposed is to “restore” marshlands that were never there and ignores significant archaeology of the site.

The draconian proposal advanced by the staff will remove significant amounts of shoreline – 5,000 cubic yards reported at a meeting on May 7 at City Hall. That is significant! It will reduce public access to the water, reduce the quality of that access, eliminate opportunities for water access, eliminates half of the shoreline and downsizes an urban park and neglects that this is an urban park. And it destroys a profound historic landscape!

Attached find a copy of this SEPA public notice, the DNS, our Appeal fee, and DNS comments for consideration from Swolgaard, April 29, 2009; Hatfield, April 30, 2009; Labotz, May 1, 2009; Elfendahl, April 30, 2009

We hereby request a hearing as provided for by BIMC 16.04.170(E) and look forward to presenting witnesses and evidence at that time.

Sincerely,

Gerald Elfendahl, Doug Hatfield, Tom Swolgaard, Dr. Frank Kitamoto, Rudy Rimando, Kay Nakao, Ron Miquel, Andy Rovelstad, Richard Labotz, Will Shopes, Nancy & Gene Pace, Felix Narte Jr., Sandra M. Burke, Edward J. Kushner, Cathy Bellefeuille, Hank Helm, Margot Jacobs, Eleanor G. Gaulding